Jin Young Song designed Qube, a dining set that folds up into a
compact cube. Credit: Jin Young Song, University at Buffalo School
of Architecture and Planning

Jin Young Song's Qube, with the dining set revealed. Credit: Jin
Young Song, University at Buffalo School of Architecture and
Planning

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Two projects by University at Buffalo
architects have landed prizes through the Architizer A+ Awards
program, a competitive annual contest that draws entries from
around the world.

Project 2XmT, a sculptural wall that UB professors and students
erected in Buffalo’s Silo City, won three awards, thanks in
part to votes from the Western New York community.

The structure, crafted from more than 150 pieces of super-thin
steel folded into geometric patterns, took home the Popular Choice
Award and Jury Award in the Architizer A+ competition’s Architecture
+Fabrication category, as well as the Jury Award in Architecture
+Materials. Online voting determined Popular Choice winners,
while judges including architects and cultural leaders selected
Jury Award recipients.

The Silo City wall is uniquely Buffalo: Standing against a
backdrop of grain elevators near the Buffalo River, it showcases
materials manufactured by local company Rigidized Metals.

“We were competing against an excellent crop of projects
spread throughout the world, and this popular choice award would
not have been possible without the tremendous support of the
Buffalo community,” said Christopher Romano, research
assistant professor of architecture, who led design and
construction with Nicholas Bruscia, clinical assistant professor of
architecture. Master of architecture students Daniel Vrana and
Philip Gusmano spent several months taking the wall from concept to
production.

In addition to the Project 2XmT team, Jin Young Song, assistant
professor of architecture, won the Architizer A+ Jury Award in the
Products
+Living category.

His project was Qube, a dining set that folds up into a compact
cube. Song designed the product through his architectural practice,
Dioinno Architecture PLLC, and says, “It is a little item
that exemplifies the holistic change in the way we experience our
living space.”

The name, Qube, captures the “cuteness” of
contemporary life and describes the product's cube-shaped
structure. Song says his creation offers a stark contrast to
"overdesigned decorative furniture or oversized geometric modern
pieces" which fail to consider the "compactness of current living
style.”

The awards mark a continuation of UB’s success in the
Architizer A+ program.

Last year, Elevator B, a steel tower that UB architecture and
planning students built in Silo City to house a colony of bees, won
the Architizer A+ Jury Award in the Student Design/Build Project
category. The 2013 competition drew more than 1,500 entries from
more than 100 countries.

“These international awards recognize the high quality of
faculty design work produced in the department, and the innovative
ways that we are employing fabrication technologies,” says
Omar Khan, chair of architecture at UB.

Both Elevator B and Project 2XmT resulted from the Department of
Architecture’s efforts to work with industry to explore new
uses for architectural materials. Rigidized Metals, which has
sponsored related design studios and research at UB, was a partner
in both winning projects.